Category: arms control

Meaning to get a rifle for a while now. A high powered sniper rifle with an equally powerful scope, so I can see the look in the eyes of my prey, the moment the bullet hits their forehead. You should get one too, all of us should. We should also get accesories of battle fatigues, hunting knives, handguns, the works. Why? Why the hell not?

Then its practice, practice and some more practice. No need to practice on dumb targets or bottles, there’s plenty of crows for our benefit. If you miss, just keep practicing till you start seeing some blood oozing from your prey’s body parts. Armed and dangerous Bangladeshis should then proceed to any border town and there are many on the menu. Get a comfortable position, stock it with the essentials and start shooting anything Indian that moves. The hunt is on, it’s open season for us too. Haven’t you heard, it’s now illegal for Bangladeshis to sit idle when their fellow countrymen are being killed left, right and center. It’s illegal to be an inactive spectator and its specially illegal to feel helpless to oppression & injustice. Our elected officials are too busy lining their pockets and shipping it abroad, so stop being naive thinking that its their job. The Army is too busy making money also; check out the Trust Banks, Sena Kalyan Trust, (Destiny 2000) & the UN Peace keeping missions. I don’t want to get started with the criminals.. i meant the Police Force. They are too busy to think about lil’ ol’ you.. the common, helpless, innocent man/woman! So wake up and make your own bed, breakfast & coffee, your maid isn’t gonna clean your house for you.

If you want something done right, then do it yourself. Get yourself some machines of destruction, for the sake of defense if offense is not your cup of tea. Why? Have you looked at the newspapers recently or for a decade or so? Take a sabbatical from the world of social media, parties, hollywood, tv serieses and glamour and bite into reality. There is no security in your country. You are more llikely to die of unnatural causes at home, on the roads, in Masjids or in public places than naturally dying in bed. The Police might kill you or a speed-freak driver or your servant or a politician or even a businessman or even a student leader. It’s open season on you, because the population has boomed & life expectancy is at its highest, thus you are just another statistic. No one cares, not even the ones you pay with you taxes to protect you! So what do you do? Buy a weapon today or become a dead statistic.

Protest peacefully! haahaa, what a joke! The government goons will sweep onyou with machetes & barettas while unarmed, civilian you get a good beating or give your life on the streets. Protest with a gun and they’ll sit up and take notice. Protest by killing a corrupt cop a day or better yet a government official but the best targets would be a politician. Kill a politician a day to keep anarchy away! ACT NOW!

Published: Jan 10, 2007Text of report in English by Iranian news agency IRNA website Tehran, 10 January: Head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO), Mahmud Mohammadi Araqi, said here Wednesday [10 January] that the US is currently pushing the strategy of sowing discord among Muslims to reach its ominous goals in the Middle East.

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed(Officially acknowledged) In America’s Rape Of Iraq 3,018

Cost of America’s War in Iraq

$357,730,483,761 till the seond this was posted

In April, 2003 an intergenerational team of Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD created costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

01/12/07 “Information Clearing House” — – Sometimes you look around and wonder how things could have gone so wrong so quickly. America has become the antithesis of everything she purports to be. We are the greatest purveyors of violence the world has ever known; the largest weapons dealers on earth; and death and misery are our principal exports. Everything is for sale here, even men’s tormented souls—at least, those who still possess them.

Our imperial leader, an impish little man with clear sociopathic symptoms, is incapable of empathy for the struggles of the common people, as those born into wealth and privilege often are. The man with his finger on the nuclear detonator is mentally ill, incapable of remorse—a fact that should terrify every world citizen. I do not say this out of malice or to demean the president; it is simply a statement of fact based upon quantifiable evidence that any student of psychology would easily recognize. Continue reading “George W. Bush: A Symptom of Disease”→

Thank God, I often say, for the Israeli press. For where else will you find the sort of courageous condemnation of Israel’s cruel and brutal treatment of the Palestinians? Where else can we read that Moshe Ya’alon, Ariel Sharon’s new chief of staff, described the “Palestinian threat” as “like a cancer – there are all sorts of solutions to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy.”

Where else can we read that the Israeli Herut Party chairman, Michael Kleiner, said that “for every victim of ours there must be 1,000 dead Palestinians”. Where else can we read that Eitan Ben Eliahu, the former Israeli Air Force commander, said that “eventually we will have to thin out the number of Palestinians living in the territories”. Where else can we read that the new head of Mossad, General Meir Dagan – a close personal friend of Mr Sharon – believes in “liquidation units”, that other Mossad men regard him as a threat because “if Dagan brings his morality to the Mossad, Israel could become a country in which no normal Jew would want to live”.Continue reading “How to shut up your critics with a single word”→

Osama bin Laden may go down in history not only as the murderous criminal who declared holy war on the United States, but also as a radical figure in what has come to be called the Islamic Reformation–the epic struggle to define the faith of over a billion people

ON JULY 6TH, 2005, in an unprecedented display of intersectarian collaboration, 170 of the world’s leading Muslim clerics and scholars gathered in Amman, Jordan, to issue a joint fatwa, or legal ruling, denouncing all acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam.

This belated attempt by the traditional clerical institutions to assert some measure of influence and authority over the world’s Muslims was surely one of the most interesting developments in what has become an epic battle to define the faith and practice of over a billion people. Never before in the history of Islam had representatives of every major sect and school of law assembled as a single body, much less come to terms on issues of mutual concern.

Yet what made the Amman declaration so remarkable was not its condemnation of terrorism-since Sept. 11, 2001, similar statements have been issued by countless Muslim organizations throughout the world, despite perceptions to the contrary in the West. Rather, it was the inclusion of an all-encompassing fatwa reminding Muslims that only those who have dedicated a lifetime of study to the traditional Islamic sciences-in other words, the clerics themselves-could issue a fatwa in the first place.

This statement was a deliberate attempt to strip Islamic militants like Osama bin Laden of their self-proclaimed authority to speak for the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims. Continue reading “The war for Islam”→

Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear bunker-busters, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open tunnels into the targets. Mini-nukes would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished, said one of the sources.

The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossads assessment that

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Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

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Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

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Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

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Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Irans nuclear programme:

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– Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment

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– A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels

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– A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb

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Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Irans nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a second Holocaust.

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“,1] ); //–>Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Current Affairs | 17.12.2002

Iraqi Report Could Prove Damaging to Germany

Iraq’s declaration of its weapons programs contains explosive news for Germany, a Berlin paper has reported. The dossier is said to detail covert arms deals between German defense firms and Iraq.

Just as the heated debates within the German government over the role of German troops and equipment in a possible war against Iraq seem to be cooling down, another potential bombshell threatens to reignite the fires.

On Tuesday, the Berlin-based left-wing paper, Tageszeitung reported that aspects of the 12,000-page Iraqi report on Iraq’s weapons programs, submitted to the U.N last week, could prove highly embarrassing for Germany.

The newspaper – believed to be the first to have access to the top-secret dossier – has written that the Iraqi declaration contains the names of 80 German firms, research laboratories and people, who are said to have helped Iraq develop its weapons program.

A Time to Break Silence: U.S. complicity in Saddam’s crimes against humanityby Paul Rockwell
Oakland, California

Years ago, at the peak of the Vietnam War, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam published a book, “In The Name Of America”, a shocking document on the systematic violations of the laws of war by U.S. forces abroad. The graphic information played a role in Dr. King’s decision to “break silence,” to speak out against U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam.

A time to break silence has come again, a time to raise our voice against U.S. complicity in crimes against humanity.

We now know who supplied Saddam Hussein with materials of mass destruction; where his military regime, notorious for atrocities against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, acquired helicopters, germs and lethal chemicals — an arsenal of terror. Iraq acquired its weapons of mass destruction from the United States, from Germany, France and Britain as well — the very countries leading a weapons inspection of Iraq.

Last month the Iraq Weapons Inventory included a long list of Western and U.S. companies (Union Carbide, Honeywell, Dupont, SpectraPhysics, Bechtel are some mentioned in “The Nation”, 1/13/2003) that supplied Saddam with deadly and dual-use material. Hoping to disguise its own culpability in Iraq’s past war crimes, the U.S. suppressed the list, but the dossier was leaked to a German newspaper, “Die Tageszeitung”.

More information trickled onto the back pages of “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post”. The main facts are no longer in dispute. In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (which outlaws chemical warfare), the Reagan-Bush administration authorized the sale of poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout the ’80s. In 1982, while Saddam Hussein constructed his machinery of war, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department list of terrorist states.

According to newly declassified documents mentioned in “The Washington Post Weekly Edition” (1/6-12/2003), Iraq was already using chemical weapons on an “almost daily basis” when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein in 1983, consolidating the U.S.-Iraq military alliance.

Subsequently, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support; U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits; and the C.I.A., using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam’s supply of cluster bombs. U.S. companies also supplied steel tubes and chemical substances, the types of material for which the Security Council is now searching.

As late as 1989 and 1990, according to a report from U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), U.S. companies, under permits from the first Bush administration, sent mustard gas materials, live cultures for bacteriological research, to Iraq. U.S. companies helped Iraq build a chemical weapons factory, and then shipped Hussein a West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide precursors, and parts for a new nuclear plant.

The infamous massacre at Halabja — the gassing of the Kurds — took place in March 1988. On September 19, sixth months later, U.S. companies sent eleven strains of germs, four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a microbe strain, called 11966, developed for germ warfare at Fort Detrick in the ’50s. (Judith Miller provides a partial account of the sordid traffic in U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, “Germs: Biological Weapons And America’s Secret War”.)

Dow Chemical (infamous for its napalm in the Vietnam War) sold large amounts of pesticides, toxins that cause death by asphyxiation. Twenty-four U.S. firms exported arms and materials to Baghdad. France also sent Hussein 200 AMX medium tanks, Mirage bombers, and Gazelle helicopter gunships. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage testified in 1987: “We cannot stand to see Iraq defeated.”

Current Affairs | 27.09.2003

German Firms Face Iraq Arms Trade Probe

Following a scoop by the Hamburg magazine Stern, German law enforcement is investigating four firms for illegal arms trading with Iraq while the country was under a U.N. embargo.

Germany’s customs investigators confirmed this week that they raided the offices of four German companies suspected of providing technology and material for Iraq’s secret weapons program.

The companies, located in four small cities in southern Germany, are accused of delivering the equipment to Iraq through other countries in 2000. The Customs Office said the evidence came from the magazine Stern, which turned over documents found in archives of the Bashair Trading Company, allegedly the center of Saddam Hussein’s weapons acquisition program in Baghdad.

Alongside German companies, firms in Poland, Russia, South Korea, even the United States evaded the United Nations-imposed embargo on Iraq, according to the documents. The weapons embargo forbade companies from trading with Iraq but some continued to do so, risking serious sanctions.

Investigators seized files and computers from the headquarters of the companies KSB AG in Bavaria, Katex Textilien GmbH in Hesse, and MEA Machinery and MEA International North Rhine Westphalia.

No WMD parts delivered

KSB allegedly delivered six chemical pumps, ordered in December 2000 and delivered into Iraq through Jordan. Katex delivered 80 acid pumps in April 2000, through a Jordanian firm. The remaining two companies delivered precision lasers, ordered in September 2000, to Baghdad via a Turkish company. The companies however didn’t deliver parts to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, according to the Stern report.

Investigators say that in some cases it is still unclear if the company’s executives were aware of the weapons trade. But Stern recovered one document from an MEA executive that praised the partnership between his firm and Iraq.

Germany has long enjoyed a reputation for high-quality and sophisticated products in the Arab world and Hussein’s search for hi-tech weapons and durable parts invariably led him to it during the course of his rule. Since the U.N. imposed the embargo on Iraq following Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, numerous German firms have come under investigation for illicit trade with the rogue state.

In the months leading up to the United States’ military invasion in March 2003, a weapons dossier released by the Iraqi government named 80 German firms said to have worked with the country in developing its weapons program. The illegal arms trade continued all the way up until 2001, according to the dossier.

The First Haditha Charges
As many as six Marines who were on the ground the day of the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians, as well as their superiors, could face serious charges on Thursday
By SALLY B. DONNELLY/WASHINGTON

Inquiry: Cleared of Wrongdoing?
Profile: The Face of Haditha

Posted Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006
More than a year after the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops in the town of Haditha, the Marine Corps will announce formal charges tomorrow. Up to six Marines who were on the ground that day, including Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, are expected to be charged with a range of offenses, which may include negligent homicide. Mark Zaid, one of Wuterich’s two civilian defense attorneys, said, “We look foward to having a formal opportunity to publicly clear our client’s name as he is absolutely innocent of any forthcoming charges. What Sgt. Wuterich is guilty of is serving this nation honorably and reasonably acting as he felt he was trained to do.” The lawyer for Capt. Lucas McConnell has said he expects his client to be charged, perhaps with dereliction of duty, although McConnell was not at Haditha that day.

One source tells TIME the highest-level officer to be charged (most likely with dereliction of duty) will be Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander in Haditha, who also was not on the ground that day. Attempts to reach Chessani for comment were not successful. But according to one civilian defense lawyer, the Marines will not be held in pre-trial confinement, which he takes an indication that the charges may not be as severe as some have expected. “They have put other Marines in other cases in the brig before trial, but they are not apparently doing that in the Haditha case. If these Marines are the mass murderers some have claimed they are, then you would think they would want to confine them.”

The charges, which will be announced at the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, California, stem from the bloody incident in Haditha, 60 miles north of Baghdad, on November 19, 2005. After Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas was killed by a powerful insurgent bomb which struck a Marine convoy, his fellow squad members killed 24 Iraqis, including some who local civilians claim were innocents simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Marines initially reported that only 15 Iraqis had died, and that they had been killed by a roadside bomb. Senior Marine officers did not investigate the deadly incident until TIME first raised questions in March.

Since then, Haditha has been the subject of two separate investigations. One, conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, looked for criminal wrongdoing and focused on the Marines on the ground at Haditha. The second, conducted by Army Major General Eldon Bargewell, examined how the commanders responded to the event. Sources tell TIME that the investigations have been hampered by the refusal of at least two of the Marines to answer questions before charges are filed.

Many, if not all, of the Marines involved in Haditha will likely challenge the charges in court; all of them will get at least one military defense lawyer, and some of the Marines have already hired civilian defense lawyers — or plan to — as well. The trials will not begin until after the first of the year.

The shocking allegations over Haditha have, not surprisingly, sparked a wide range of strong reactions inside the Marine Corps. Many Marines think the squad on the ground that day overreacted and has brought dishonor to the Corps. “It looks like these Marines lost it and if that is the case, the Corps doesn’t accept that,” says one senior Marine officer. Others point out that Iraq is the one of the most complex battlefields the American military has ever fought in—and tried to do it with too few troops. “What do we expect of young Marines who are executing a failed strategy in a place where civilians routinely hide the enemy?” asked one Marine officer who served in Iraq.

A Marine Corps communique initially reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb’s blast and eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy. However, media reports contradicted this story.[2] The evidence uncovered by the media prompted the US military to open an investigation into the incident. Evidence collected by this investigation “supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians, including unarmed women and children”, according to a Pentagon official. [3] On December 21, 2006, eight Marines were charged in connection with the incident. [4][5]

Events

Background

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US military forces have been stationed in and around Haditha to control the Haditha Dam, a major hydroelectric installation. The predominately Sunni-inhabited area was, from the start, a major centre of insurgent activity. As early as June 2003 American soldiers attacked an insurgent training camp near Haditha.[6] Many insurgent attacks followed in the next three years, and the area gained a reputation as one of particular danger for US and Iraqi government forces.

On August 1, 2005 six marine snipers were killed outside or near Haditha.[7] Two days later, on (August 3, 2005), 14 Marines were killed in their Marine amphibious assault vehicle by an IED.[8]

Killings and immediate aftermath

On November 20, 2005 a Marine press release from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi said the deaths of the civilians was a consequence of a road side bomb and Iraqi insurgents. The initial US military statement read:

A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another[9][2]

Soon after the killings, the mayor of Haditha, Emad Jawad Hamza, led an angry delegation of elders up to the Haditha Dam Marine base allegedly complaining to the base captain.[2]

Marines paid a total of $38,000 to families of 15 of the civilians killed. [10]

Investigations

On February 14, 2006, a preliminary investigation was ordered by Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, after video evidence was released, which conflicted with the initial US report. On March 9 a criminal investigation was launched, led by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, to determine if the troops deliberately targeted Iraqi civilians.[9]

On March 19, the US military officials confirmed that contrary to the initial report, 15 civilians were accidentally killed due to the US marines and not Iraqi insurgents.

Currently several official investigations are underway. The first, under US Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, is investigating how the incident was reported through the chain of command. A second investigation, headed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is looking into the criminal aspects of the incident, and are expected to finish their report in June. [12] A third investigation is being launched by the Iraqi government.

As of June 2, 2006, news outlets had reported that 24 Iraqis were killed, none as a result of the bomb explosion.[13] The news comes in anticipation of the results of the military’s investigation, which is said to find that the 24 unarmed Iraqis—including children as young as two years and women[14]—were killed by 12 members of Kilo Company in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.[15]

Evidence of the killings

Video shot by Iraqi journalist and founder of Hammurabi Human Rights Group[16]Taher Thabet and cellphone photos reportedly taken by one of the Marines[17] the day after the killings have been put forth as evidence that the killings were methodical and without resistance.[2][18] The term “execution-style” has been used by US military officials to describe the killings. [19]In particular, the video shot by Thabeth shows the bodies of the children and women with gunshot wounds, bullet holes in the interior walls of the house, and bloodstains on the floor.

Reaction

According to Sidney Blumenthal in a June 8, 2006Salon Magazine article, “The coverup at Haditha reportedly began instantly. However, an Iraqi journalism student shot a video the day after of the bloodstained and bullet-riddled houses where the massacre had occurred. That video made its way to an Iraqi human rights group and finally to Tim McGirk, a correspondent from Time magazine. When Time made its first queries, the Marine spokesman, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, who had issued the first statement on Haditha as an action against terrorists months earlier, told reporters that they were falling for al-Qaida propaganda. ‘I cannot believe you’re buying any of this,’ he wrote in an e-mail. Nonetheless, word reached Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq, that there had been no investigation and he ordered one immediately.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, military and congressional sources distinguished between two squads: the original Marine squad involved in the explosion and shootings, and a Marine intelligence squad that took photos shortly after the shootings. According to LA Times sources, although the intelligence squad’s photos were inconsistent with the Marine squad’s report of a firefight, no investigation occurred until after a March 2006 Time Magazine story alleging a massacre. According to the story, military officials blamed the delay of the investigation on the Marine squad’s efforts to cover up the events:

Military officials say they believe the delay in beginning the investigation was a result of the squad’s initial efforts to cover up what happened.

However, both military and congressional sources said that the intelligence team that took photos after the firefight did not appear to participate in any improper action:

[m]ilitary and congressional sources said there was no indication that the members of the intelligence team did anything improper or delayed reporting their findings.

There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up — there is no question about it. But I am confident, as soon as the command learned there might be some truth to this, they started to pursue it vigorously. I don’t have any reason now to think there was any foot dragging.[18]

Eman Waleed, a nine-year-old child who claimed to have witnessed the incident, described the US marines entering their house. She said:

I couldn’t see their faces very well – only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny[2]

The director of the local hospital in Haditha, Dr Wahid, claimed that the 24 bodies were brought to the hospital around midnight on November 19th. While the marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb, Dr Whaid said that there were “no organs slashed by shrapnel in any of the bodies”. He further claimed that it appeared that “the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range”.[2]

There was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.[22]

On August 2, 2006 Marine Corps staff sergeant Frank D. Wuterich, who led the accused squad, filed suit for libel and invasion of privacy. The filing states Murtha “tarnished the Marine’s reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.”[23] Wuterich was charged with 13 counts of murder on December 21, 2006.

Rationales

James Crossen, who was sitting next to Terrazas, was also injured by the roadside bomb. In an interview with King5 television in Seattle, he alleged that children in the area often helped insurgents by counting vehicles in a convoy. Crossen suggests that it is likely women and children had given information about US patrols to insurgents, and that this information led to the roadside bomb attack. When asked whether he had any emotion about the villagers who were killed, Crossen responded “No… Probably half of them were bad guys and you just don’t know, so it really doesn’t cross my mind. […] Being so far away and it being so hot… you just lose control sort of and kind of stop caring what happened and I’m pretty sure that’s what happened over there.”[24]

Martin Terrazas, father of the dead Marine, has been quoted as saying that Marines his son had fought with had told him that, following the bomb explosion, the Company was attacked by insurgents who used civilians as human shields, and that the Marines had done “only what was necessary to survive.”[25]

Conditions in Kilo Company Camp

On June 20, 2006 the BBC ran an article alleging that conditions in the Kilo company headquarters were “feral”. The four hundred men were based at a dam three miles from Haditha. The camp was described as a “decaying rabbit-warren”. As a result, unofficial shacks had been set up outside the building to house Marines. Oliver Poole, a reporter who visited the camp, called the conditions filthy and disgusting. He said:

The fact that the officers had let conditions deteriorate to the level in which where people living [sic] in such basic environment, that says something,” he said. “Where were the officers keeping the standards that the US military keeps in the field?” [26]

Conditions in Haditha itself were known to have been deteriorating under militant rule, and attacks on U.S. troops as well as executions of suspected informants were common.[27]

Ethics seminars

The US Army has announced that coalition troops in Iraq are to undergo ethics training following the incident in Haditha.

Comparisons with My Lai Massacre and other incidents

Many news reports have compared the Haditha Killings to the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, with some commentators describing it as “Bush’s My Lai” [28][29] or “Iraq’s My Lai”.[30] Very often, the killings have been described as part of a wider pattern of perceived human rights abuses committed by coalition forces in Iraq. As a Spiegel reporter notes in an interview with Michael Sallah (who won the Pulitzer Prize for his investigation of atrocities committed by the Tiger Force unit in Vietnam [31]), “you would have difficulties finding a single newspaper in Germany or elsewhere in Europe which does not deal with My Lai, Abu Ghraib and Haditha in the same commentary.”[32] It is suggested the Haditha killings may, like the My Lai Massacre, result in further reduction of American public support for the conflict.[29] The comparison is not accepted by everyone, including Christopher Hitchens, who characterized the My Lai comparisons as “all the glib talk about My Lai is so much propaganda and hot air.”[33]

Comparisons have also been made to the case of Ilario Pantano, who was cleared of charges of premeditated murder in Iraq after it was determined there was no credible evidence or testimony. Pantano himself has spoken out in defense of the “Haditha Marines,” objecting to the “rush to judgement.” [34]

This is the story that must be told
Of an Iraqi baby, not very old
Lying in her crib on a star-lit night
How could she know of those planes in flight?

She lies there quietly touching her nose
Watching her mobile, wiggling her toes
Oohing and cooing, so sweetly is she
Talking to someone, who could it be?

An angel is standing with her in the room.
The baby is smiling, unaware of her doom.
The crib starts to shake and the mobile goes round
Then suddenly comes the most deafening sound
The ceiling drops in, in a second or two…
On her crib so she ceases to coo…

No one knows how long she lies there
Who thought about it? Doesn’t anyone care?
Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she in pain?
Now that you mention it, who knows her name?
Her name is Amel, in English we say Hope
Crushed between the rubble, her tiny fingers start to grope!

Where is my Mommy? I love her so dear.
Come get me Mommy! It’s dark in here!
I’m scared and hungry and I can’t see my feet,
There’s blood in my mouth! Give me something to eat!
Where is Daddy? Where’s my big brother?
It hurts when I breathe! Where is my mother?!
How long have I been here? Is this just a dream?

I open my mouth, but I can’t even scream!
They appear again by my side.
This time with a tear I plead…Why have I died?
Am I alone in my suffering? NO, there are many others.

In our grief and misery, we are all sisters and brothers.
Who are we, I ask you.. for what crime did we die?
They’re throwing a party! Doesn’t anyone cry?!
Is it true? Am I nothing?! How could it be?
Don’t they also have babies, just like me?
It is war they say, of which death is a part.

How blind they’ve become, how hardened of heart.
Did someone say hero? To whom they speak?
A victory claimed for killing the weak?!
Why are they happy? Why are they proud?
Don’t they know that I’m cold in my burial shroud?!
No war has been won; no ifs, buts or maybes
For Saddam still lives: they’ve only killed babies..

Protests by American gun lobbyists and arms-producing countries have derailed attempts to restrict the illegal trade in guns, which kills more than 800 people every day.A two-week United Nations conference on gun control in New York broke up in disarray on Friday night after US delegates vetoed further meetings of the body and blocked discussion of domestic gun laws. Cuba, Iran, India, Pakistan and Russia also voted down measures to prevent the export of arms to countries that abuse human rights.

Up to 308,000 people are killed every year by small arms and there are 640 million guns in circulation worldwide – one for every 10 people on the planet.

A gun control organisation the International Action Network on Small Arms (Iansa) said a small minority of countries had, in effect, vetoed attempts at an agreement. ‘It is to their lasting shame that governments let this happen. They allowed a small number of states to… derail any plans which might have brought improvement in this global crisis,’ said Iansa director Rebecca Peters.

Despite British attempts to strike a last-minute compromise the conference concluded without any agreed policy, and there will be no future meetings because of America’s objections.

Sierra Leone’s UN ambassador Sylvester Rowe, a leading advocate of gun control, said that US objections had been instrumental in sinking the deal. ‘We are sending the wrong message to the victims and the potential victims of gun violence,’ he told The Observer.

An estimated 60,000 people were killed in Sierra Leone’s gun-fuelled nine-year civil war from 1991, and a postwar disarmament programme resulted in 25,000 firearms being handed in.

One UN source said certain US delegates appeared set on wrecking the process. ‘For US pro-gun organisations it’s not about these countries in Africa that need to get rid of arms for development and to end civil wars. It’s about Americans’ right to bear arms, and their fears about some world government trying to take that right away,’ the source said.